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Microsoft Says the FCC 'Overstates' Broadband Availability In the US (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Microsoft this week was the latest to highlight the U.S. government's terrible broadband mapping in a filing with the FCC, first spotted by journalist Wendy Davis. In it, Microsoft accuses the FCC of over-stating actual broadband availability and urges the agency to do better. "The Commission's broadband availability data, which underpins FCC Form 477 and the Commission's annual Section 706 report, appears to overstate the extent to which broadband is actually available throughout the nation," Microsoft said in the filing. "For example, in some areas the Commission's broadband availability data suggests that ISPs have reported significant broadband availability (25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up) while Microsoft's usage data indicates that only a small percentage of consumers actually access the Internet at broadband speeds in those areas," Microsoft said.
Similar criticism has long plagued the agency. The FCC's broadband data is received via the form 477 data collected from ISPs. But ISPs have a vested interest in over-stating broadband availability to obscure the sector's competition problems, and the FCC historically hasn't worked very hard to independently verify whether this data is truly accurate. The FCC's methodology has long been criticized as well. As it currently stands, the agency declares an entire ZIP code as "served" with broadband if just one home in an entire census block has it. In its filing, Microsoft "suggested that the Commission's ongoing effort to more accurately measure broadband could be improved by drawing on the FCC's subscription data, along with other broadband data sets from third-parties such as Microsoft, to complement survey data submitted under the current rules."
Similar criticism has long plagued the agency. The FCC's broadband data is received via the form 477 data collected from ISPs. But ISPs have a vested interest in over-stating broadband availability to obscure the sector's competition problems, and the FCC historically hasn't worked very hard to independently verify whether this data is truly accurate. The FCC's methodology has long been criticized as well. As it currently stands, the agency declares an entire ZIP code as "served" with broadband if just one home in an entire census block has it. In its filing, Microsoft "suggested that the Commission's ongoing effort to more accurately measure broadband could be improved by drawing on the FCC's subscription data, along with other broadband data sets from third-parties such as Microsoft, to complement survey data submitted under the current rules."
If I send forms to the government that I fill out purposely wrong for my financial benefit, they'll call it fraud and fine me and possibly throw my ass in jail.
Why does this not apply here?
I know it's fun to MS bash here, but they are doing the right thing.
And because it's a ${BIG_CORPORATION} complaining instead of public interest groups or ${PEONS}, maybe something will actually get done (but I doubt it)
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Ajit Pai has literally made videos of himself making fun of people who don't agree with his policies. There is no level of incompetence that can explain that. It's pure fucking malice.
Microsoft wants people to move to their cloudy rented OS, and limited broadband is a major stumbling block to that plan.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
Internet service providers are universally descriptive in the effectiveness of their connection; up to
(25 Mbps down/3 Mbps up).
Technically, and of much greater importance, legally, their advertising has not breached litigious level with this claim from the Madmen.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I mean, come on, all you speed daemons need to mellow out, just let each character scroll slowly over your screen and let the corporate megalopoly provide you with what it can charge you top dollar for.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Not convinced the FCC has overstated the availability of broadband. Looking at the definition of broadband by the FCC... Unless you live in a cave, there is always satellite internet that fits the definition. It may not have the best ping times, but ping times are not included in the definition.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Looking at the definition of broadband by the FCC... Unless you live in a cave, there is always satellite internet that fits the definition. It may not have the best ping times, but ping times are not included in the definition.
What are these new satellite internet provider(s) meeting the FCC definition?
It's been about 6 years since I last checked but there was nothing even planned to be on the horizon for 25 Mbps down. I'd love to know what to search for since generic search terms don't turn up anything like that still.
For synchronous satellite gear the fastest I've seen is 1 Mbps down and a quarter of that up.
For asynchronous you can get some crazy download speeds but you need to use another form of connectivity for your upstream traffic, such as a dialup modem, DSL, or a PRI/T1
Since they use CLECs or POTS, aka services from a phone company, those all have even worse availability these days, especially so in remote areas you'd be considering satellite for in the first place.
Also, not that it matters for the FCC definition, but I've found most synchronous satellite providers have data caps or charge based on data transfer. Sort of like cellular data plans but far more expensive.
Viasat was one place I almost reconsidered as they dropped their transfer charge plans the end of 2018. They do have caps but exceeding them just prioritizes other customers over you, so again very much like "unlimited" cellular data plans.
This company used to charge $250/month/150gb (about my monthly usage) but now it's down to $200/month and once you hit 150gb you get a minimum guarantee of 256 Kbps down and then any scraps of bandwidth not being used at the moment.
HughesNet gives you 10 Mbps down but only 50 GB/month for $150/month, and then charges $5/gb, so my usual usage patterns are basically $650/month with them.
You can get 20 Mbps out of Exede. That's still not 25, but it's pretty close. Upstream is 768k or so, IIRC. I just wish they had RV service. They also throttle streaming video, but I don't care about that. If I want full quality, I'll buy the Blu-Ray.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why doesn't Microsoft build a map out of all the locations that don't have broadband access? Must be an easy thing to do if you listen to them.
Dear FCC,
The telemetry of our products is now making a significant impact on Internet connections.
Please give MOAR bandwidth.
Smooches,
Microsoft Corp.
Verizon and AT&T are going to call a few executives at Microsoft and threaten to take their business to Google or Amazon, these executives are then going to call the people who filed the report with the FCC and tell them to abandon it or else, and that will be the end of it.
The same thing happened with Net Neutrality and it's going to happen again now.
MS, in my opinion, is still a terrible company. But I don’t think they’re wrong on this point. MS wants consumers to have access to better broadband for the company’s goals and not purely altruistic ones. But given what we know already about the FCC’s past inaccurate characterization of broadband, it’s reasonable to assume they can do it again. This time under Pai, I’m not going to assume it’s incompetence; I’m going to assume it’s dishonesy.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'm a software engineer and when I bought my current home, I made the mistake of relying on the broadbandmap.gov website. It showed that I had lots of cable internet options, so you can imagine my surprise when after signing over the next 30 years of my life, that I had... get this, ZERO options available. Satellite doesn't count, because using RDS streaming to stream desktops to your machine kills bandwidth. DSL wasn't even an option, because all of the circuits were being utilized. I was lucky enough to work for a company that had some sway with a local terrestrial wireless carrier (they also run a data center), and they put up a repeater for a line-of-sight tower nearby, that granted me a 6Mbit plan with no data caps.
C. Griffin
"Can I keep his head for a souvenir?" --Max from Sam 'N Max Freelance Police